


From Rome to Brundisium, With Stops

by Nary



Category: Rome
Genre: Bisexual Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Coming of Age, Face Slapping, Family, Family Drama, Future Fic, Gen, Post-Canon, Pseudo-incestuous allusions, Siblings, Slavery, Slice of Life, Trans Character, Unconventional Families, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-20
Updated: 2011-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-27 14:27:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/296825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nary/pseuds/Nary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm going to be a boy when we get to Brundisium."</p><p>"Oh," Lucius said, thinking for a moment.  "Father won't like that."</p><p>"Father can go suck an egg," she replied under her breath.  "It'll be better this way."</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Rome to Brundisium, With Stops

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pitseleh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pitseleh/gifts).



Vorena bade her elder sister farewell at the temple. "May Blessed Orbona watch over you," her sister said, kissing her on both cheeks. The younger Vorena resisted the urge to scowl. Her sister had become so pious in the last while, following Lyde into the relative safety of service to the goddess who watched over children and orphans. Vorena was neither, but her sister bestowed the blessing on her anyway.

"We'll travel safely," she replied, "and we'll send word when we're settled in Brundisium." A large port town had seemed best to her father and Pullo, who wanted a place where they could blend into a crowd, and the ability to make a quick getaway if anyone recognized them. Vorena had supported the idea, not that they had consulted her, because travelers always needed a place to sleep and have a bite to eat, and a taberna would do well there. With the money they had set aside, and the generous reward Octavian had bestowed on Pullo for services he had not in fact performed, it would be a simple enough matter to set up a new establishment in a place where no one knew them. "You could come if you wanted, join us..." It was an old conversation, and she knew what the outcome would be before she said it, but was unable to leave it unsaid nevertheless.

"I can't," Vorena the elder said, exactly as she had expected. "I have my duties here, and I'm happy... as happy I can be. You could stay here too, we would welcome you into the temple..."

Vorena the younger shook her head. "You know it wouldn't suit me. Besides, someone has to look after Lucius. Be well," she told her elder sister, who nodded and turned away quickly so that no one would see her crying.

Lucius waited outside with the cart. "Where's Father gone?" she asked him. "Where's Pullo and Aeneas, for that matter?" The boy simply shrugged, and Vorena rolled her eyes. "Oh, just leave it all to me," she muttered, and went to round them up.

The Appian Way to Brundisium was a good road, but still their passage was slow, with the cart laden with all of their worldly goods. Vorena waited until they were two days out from the city before putting her plan into action. She started with Lucius, because he would be the most likely to understand. "I want to cut my hair," she told him that night.

"So cut it," he said simply.

"I need your help, though. I won't be able to make it look right if I do it myself."

"I'm not a hairdresser," Lucius told her, as if she might have become slow in the head.

"I don't care, will you help me cut it or won't you?"

He shrugged. "I suppose." He took the knife she offered him and began to saw through her hair. It felt awful, pulling and tearing, but she kept silence, not wanting to wake her father.

"Why are you doing this?" Lucius asked, setting aside another handful.

"Because," she told him, "I'm going to be a boy when we get to Brundisium."

"Oh," he said, thinking for a moment. "Father won't like that."

"Father can go suck an egg," she replied under her breath. "It'll be better this way."

"If you say so." Lucius ran a hand through her tangled hair to loosen the curls. "I like your hair, though. It reminds me of Mother's."

Vorena said nothing. She didn't know how much Lucius remembered about their mother. She remembered a great deal. She could particularly remember the blood that had clotted in her long, black curls as she lay lifeless in their courtyard. She bowed her head and let her brother finish his task.

In the morning, her father shouted at her for her shorn locks and raised his hand to her, then winced and put it down again. His injuries had left him weakened, and no one could say if he would ever recover fully. Vorena waited out his rage, then pointed out calmly that there was nothing he could do about it now. "We'll buy you a wig when we get there," he told her, his voice cold as he turned away.

"Lend me a tunic," she said to Aeneas a few days later, as they rested in a peach orchard by the side of the Appian Way.

The young man once known as Caesarion laughed. "You don't deserve the cast-offs of a god. They ought to be burned so they can be returned to my divine ancestors."

"Your divine ancestors didn't give them to you," she pointed out sensibly. "Your real father did."

"He's not my father." It was still a sore point with him.

"Fine. Titus Pullo, the man who's saving your life, gave them to you. And the one with the blue trim is too small now anyway, because you keep growing. Is that better?"

He frowned. "You are a very strange girl." But he gave her the tunic, and didn't laugh when she presented herself the next morning, breasts bound as flat as she could make them and wearing his cast-off clothing. Pullo did laugh, but stopped when he saw the ominous look on Vorenus's face. Vorenus himself said nothing to his daughter, giving her the icy treatment. That was fine - she preferred it to his yelling.

Pullo rode up alongside her midway through the day. "Come on, put on your dress again, everyone can see your knees," he said, cajoling. "You're upsetting your father."

"No." Her jaw was set, stubborn. "I've made up my mind. When we get there, I'm going to be a boy."

Pullo looked concerned. "Vorena, don't be ridiculous. You're a girl - a woman, that is, and a pretty one at that. Why in the world would you want to be a boy?"

She turned to look at him, thinking of Eirene, who had died gushing blood from between her legs, and Gaia, dumped into the Tiber like a dog. Thinking, always, always, of her mother and her sister. Perhaps some of her thoughts came through in her stare, for Pullo frowned and looked away, uncomfortable. "It's just easier," she said grimly, looking ahead of her once more.

"Well, it won't be easier the first time you have to go to the baths," he replied. "Which side will you go in?"

"I'll figure it out," she muttered. "Or I'll bathe at home if I have to."

"And what about when you… you know." Pullo considered his words carefully. "Have female troubles."

She gave him a glare that silenced that line of inquiry. "Is that the most important thing you can think of?"

He shrugged. "No, that'd be your father. He's not liking any of this, Vorena."

"Then let him talk to me himself, not send you as his messenger."

"Now, you know he wouldn't send me. I'm no message-carrier, never been good at remembering someone's words to repeat back later."

"You're his second man, you've delivered plenty of messages for him."

Pullo barked a brief laugh. "At the end of a blade, sure. Don't think you want that sort of message. Just... try and see reason, eh? No man's going to want to marry you, looking like that."

"Good," she said, and got down from the cart to walk, deliberately falling behind him.

Her father did not speak to her for the rest of the trip, which took another long, uncomfortable week. When they finally arrived, Pullo eyed the port town with a sceptical eye. "Not much to look at," he said, with the air of one who thought anything less than Rome was a backwards village, "but I suppose it'll do."

Lucius and Aeneas went off to explore, and Pullo and Vorenus to get food from the shop that smelled the least awful. By default, Vorena was left with the cart and horses. She took the opportunity to work on her lounging, emulating the boys who stood in the shade and whistled at the girls who walked by on their way to the shops or the fountain. She didn't dare to go so far as the whistling, not wanting to attract undue attention, but she perfected their lazy lean.

The boys soon returned, drawn by the scent of the bread and flaky bluefish that their fathers had purchased, and reported on what they'd seen - ships filling the harbour, loading and unloading their cargo, sailors from every corner of the republic. Brundisium was prosperous and busy - a few newcomers wouldn't even be noticed. "We'll stay here tonight," Vorenus pronounced, "look for somewhere of our own tomorrow."

"Two rooms, then?" Pullo said, preparing to go and make the arrangements with the innkeeper. Somehow he was more persuasive than Vorenus, so such tasks usually fell to him.

"Three," Vorenus said, eyeing his daughter.

"Oh, why bother?" Pullo said. "Put the three boys together, save some coin." Vorenus glared daggers at him, but Pullo just grinnned and went to find them rooms. Vorena dared a smile herself, looking at the ground so no one would notice.

"Try and look respectable, at least," Vorenus told her after Pullo left. "Stand up properly. Son." Even though he said the word through gritted teeth, she took this as a small victory, and, in concession, stood up straighter.

Even after their long journey, none of them slept easily. Through the thin walls, she could hear her father and Pullo talking late into the night. Although most of their words escaped her, she recognized their tones readily enough - Pullo was conciliatory, her father subdued but still angry.

"What should we call you?" Lucius asked, propping himself up on his elbows to look at her in the thin moonlight that shone through the gaps in the roof.

"What?"

"We can't call you Vorena now," he said, eminently sensibly. "So what, then?"

She would have been embarrassed to admit she hadn't thought about it. "Titus," she said, the first man's name that came to mind. "Titus Vorenus."

"All right," said Lucius, flopping onto his back. "We'll try to remember, won't we, Aeneas?"

Aeneas, who had enough lies of his own to keep straight, shrugged. "I suppose so. You should pick a more interesting name, though. Titus is very boring."

"Boring is fine with me. I don't need people remembering what an odd name I have. I don't want anyone to notice me at all."

This concept was foreign to Aeneas, who had, after all, grown up being treated like a god. "If people find out what you really are, they might hurt you," he said after a long silence.

"Same as you, then. All the more reason to keep our heads down."

Lucius stared at the ceiling. "Father and Pullo aren't very good at that."

"No, but I think this time they'll try."

"For our sakes?" Lucius asked, still young enough to be hopeful.

"No, for their own skins. Go to sleep." Titus rolled over and closed his eyes.

***

It was not too difficult to find a suitable building to buy - one near the port, with enough room for some tables, and a decent kitchen. Titus approved of the place as soon as he saw it. It had formerly been a brewer's establishment, as some of the foreign sailors unaccountably preferred beer over wine, but the owner had fallen into debt and been forced to sell. The place smelled of sour barley, but once it was cleaned up, it would suit quite well. The cleaning, of course, fell to the youngsters, while Pullo made deals about town for the furnishings and supplies they would need and Vorenus bought slaves. He came home with three women, all young and attractive, and a man with straw-coloured hair and a broken nose. None had more than the barest smattering of Latin. This was all right with Titus, who winced a little every time his father slipped up and called him 'her'. The girls, whose complexions spoke of birthplaces in Cappadocia or thereabouts, went by Persis, Danae, and Anteia, and the German was, implausibly, Narcissus.

"Can any of them cook?" Titus asked his father.

Vorenus shrugged. "The girls will serve the guests, the fellow will do any heavy work around the place."

"We still need a cook," Titus said, scowling.

"You can cook," Vorenus pointed out. "Your mother taught you something useful, didn't she? Cooking, spinning, weaving... And it'll keep you out of sight."

"You need me in the front, keeping everything running smoothly. That's what I did before, that's what I'll do here. We're buying a cook."

"Oh, you're the man of the house now, are you?" Vorenus said sourly.

"Why not? You gave up on the job years ago." Titus braced for the blow before it landed, and even through his pain he enjoyed the way his father sucked air through his teeth with the effort of swinging his arm. He stayed on the floor until Vorenus walked away - it was safer that way.

The following day, Vorenus returned to the slave market and bought a Greek woman with wide hips and a mustache that Titus rather envied. Eleutheria spoke better Latin than any of the others, but more importantly, she knew how to cook. Titus had only to make sure she was supplied with ingredients, and she could turn them into remarkable meals, the scents of which would draw in more business than a trio of pretty girls. Pullo took to hanging about the kitchen and flirting with her just to get first crack at any scraps. He must have gained twenty pounds in the first year.

Titus kept a close eye on the younger girls, tried to let them know that he'd stand up for them if they needed anything. He couldn't stop the patrons from leering at them, touching them, but if any of them roughed up the girls, they were out - Pullo would do the honours, but Titus was the one who made the call. Sometimes a glare from the slim, dark-haired man by the door was enough to settle down a rowdy drunk. Little good it did - Danae caught some filthy pox off a sailor and despite the physician's mercury treatments, she died, and Anteia fell pregnant not long after.

"Let her keep the baby," Pullo said, "she'll work harder if she's got something to work for."

"She'll be useless for six months, a year maybe," Vorenus argued. "And then we're saddled with an extra mouth to feed."

"And an extra worker when it grows up," Pullo countered.

"Whose is it?" Titus asked from his usual perch by the door. "Has anyone asked her?"

Pullo laughed. "As if she'd know, the little whore!"

He was right, it could have been anyone's, Titus thought - well, anyone's except his father's. He was reasonably sure Vorenus kept his hands off the slaves, except to smack them occasionally. Still, the question ate away at him, and finally he asked Anteia herself.

The girl blushed, looking down. "I think," she said, her words still halting, "it is from Aeneas. He comes to me most of nights." Titus wasn't entirely surprised, but the thought that Aeneas would have stood by and said nothing made him angry. Anteia saw the look and flinched, but Titus turned and walked away, leaving her more puzzled than anything.

He went to find Aeneas, who was out in the courtyard under the shady tree, scribbling something on a tablet. He fancied himself a poet these days. "What are you going to do?" Titus demanded.

"About what?"

"About Anteia's baby. She says it's yours."

Aeneas looked momentarily stunned, but recovered his composure quickly. "I don't see why I should do anything. She's a slave. These things happen. She should be honoured to bear the child of a god."

"She doesn't think you're a god, you idiot, she just thinks you're the boss's second man's son."

"Either way, she's not my problem."

Titus punched him in the face just as he was looking down to his writing again. Aeneas's head jerked back, smacking hard against the trunk of the tree, and blood spurted from his nose. "She _is_ your problem, and you will tell Father, and you will deal with it like a man," Titus told him, his voice shaking with the effort of keeping it pitched low enough.

"Yes, you're the expert on that." Aeneas wiped his hand across his blood-smeared face. "What do you expect me to do? Marry the damn girl?"

"No," Titus said, more calmly. "It's clear you don't want to, so why should she be saddled with a husband who resents her? But you will insist that they not sell her baby or expose it. They'll be more likely to listen to you." He walked away before Aeneas could object further.

A few nights later, Anteia was waiting in Titus's chamber when he came to bed. "What are you doing here?" he asked, immediately wary but trying not to sound it.

"You help me," she said. "You make them say I can keep baby." She was coming closer, her arms outstretched for an embrace. Titus put his hands out, gripping her shoulders, keeping her at arms' length. Her skin was warm, and he wished, just for a moment, that he could hold her. It wasn't that he wanted her in particular so much as that he wanted to be able to want her, wanted to put his arms around someone without worrying about what they would say when they found out...

"It was Aeneas," he told her firmly. "Thank him." He steered her efficiently towards the door. "Just remember, he got you into this situation in the first place too." When she was gone, he breathed easier, and he made sure they were not alone together after that.

Anteia named the baby Felix, and Pullo was right - she did work harder with a child to consider, in order to save up money and eventually buy their freedom. Titus figured it had turned out about as well as could be expected under the circumstances, and everyone was charmed by Felix's antics once he grew big enough to walk and chatter. Anteia stayed friendly towards Titus, but she didn't try to touch him again, which made him both relieved and wistful.

The Lucius question preoccupied their thoughts for much of a year. What was he to do? He'd never been one for reading, and his training as a mason had been cut short when they'd had to leave Rome. He worked around the taberna doing this and that, at least when he felt like it, but clearly that wouldn't do for the rest of his life. And, much to his father's dismay, he liked to hang about with some of the younger men in the collegium who ran the docks, who were known to take some extra on top of the import fees, by force if necessary.

"It would be a disreputable life," Vorenus frowned. "I don't want that sort of thing for him."

"Oh, but it was all right for you," said Titus as he worked at the abacus, tallying up the night's take, running his finger through the sand. "We could use someone on the inside there, he could help us get supplies before they go to market, and keep us in their good graces if there's trouble."

"No, he'll join the army, like he always wanted to," Pullo said, as though it was a foregone conclusion. "It'll do him some good to see the world, teach him to follow orders, make a man out of him."

"It's not like it was when we joined up," Vorenus protested. "They sign on for twenty years now, plus five in the reserves, since Octavian's changes." He looked like he wanted to spit, but didn't. "Twenty-five years is a long time. A lifetime, maybe."

This same conversation was played out many times before Lucius took the decision out of their hands, as he found steady work at the shipbuilder's yard owned by Marcus Silvius Rufo. Titus was puzzled by this, as it didn't seem like something he would have imagined his brother being interested in, until he saw Silvia, the shipwright's daughter, riding out in her litter - then he understood. He thought it was probably futile, but he understood. Still, building ships was always steady work, and it kept Lucius out of trouble, so it pleased Father.

Aeneas, meanwhile, kept working on his poems. Pullo told him approximately twice a week that there was no money in poetry, but all this did was make Aeneas more determined to prove him wrong. He wrote reams of the stuff - Titus thought it was mostly quite foolish, all about shepherds and flowers and mountains. It didn't sell, of course.

Vorenus was more supportive of the young man's efforts than one might have expected, but then, he had some education, which none of the rest of them shared. "It's good," he would say, reading whatever the latest drivel was, "reminds me of Ennius, how you varied the meter here." But even Vorenus also told him, "Writing verse is all well and good if you're wealthy, in your spare time maybe, but producing poems for pay? No, never." So he was probably the most horrified when Aeneas announced that he'd taken a commission to write a play.

"Actors!" Vorenus bellowed, but stayed in his seat by the fire. He moved about less these days, his old wounds troubling him, especially in cold weather. "Nothing but a bunch of painted parasites, no better than whores!"

"I won't be on the stage myself," Aeneas explained patiently. "I'm just writing for them. They want to produce a new tragedy, not the same old Greeks."

"Tragedy, eh?" Pullo looked bemused. "Never understood why folks would go to the theater to watch a bunch of miserable bastards kill each other. Why not a comedy?"

Aeneas shook his head. "Comedy is a lower art form," he explained loftily. "Tragedy is more esteemed. ...I thought I might write about Queen Cleopatra, actually."

"Hits a little close to home, doesn't it?" Vorenus muttered.

"Just don't do anything stupid," Titus warned him, "like slandering the Emperor." Aeneas looked sideways, and Titus knew that was precisely what he was planning to do, probably thinking he would be subtle and poetic and people would laugh at his wit instead of having him arrested. "You have to make her a villain if you're going to write about her," Titus continued desperately, "or else you'll wind up dead, just like the rest of them. And I don't want… none of us want that to happen. Please," he added uncharacteristically.

Aeneas sulked for a few days and then settled down to write about Dido, Queen of Carthage instead. The play was successful enough that he was able to buy a place of his own with the earnings - just a small one, but it made Pullo proud enough that he stopped saying there was no money in poetry, and instead talked about "my son the poet." Aeneas no longer corrected him on the 'son' part.

Titus would occasionally stop by Aeneas's house after the taberna closed, partly to keep an eye on him, partly because they both kept late hours by habit as well as by trade, but also because he found it helped clear his head after the chaos of the day. One particular night in late spring, he wandered in, as he was accustomed to do, and found an unfamiliar young man tangled in Aeneas's arms. They pulled apart as Titus stared, dumbfounded. "Who's this?" said the man, who was, on closer examination, not quite as young as he seemed, but remarkably handsome, with blond curls and a mouth full of even, white teeth.

"Don't you knock?" Aeneas snapped.

"I never knew I had to!" Titus was flustered, ready to turn and leave, but the stranger straightened his toga and did so first, bidding Aeneas farewell. Titus felt oddly vindicated by this - he had driven out the intruder, not been driven out himself. But Aeneas looked furious.

"You come in here like you own the place, never thinking you might be interrupting anything..."

"Who's he then, an actor I suppose? Dis and Orcus, Father was right about them!"

"None of your business," Aeneas said, his face flushed with wine and anger and embarrassment. "Why should you care?"

Titus would come back to examine that question in greater detail later, when he was calmer, but at that moment, he just shouted that he didn't give a brass obol, Aeneas could fuck whoever he wanted, but he should at least have the common sense to lock the door first.

"I can do what I like, oh, thank you kindly for your permission! Who appointed you censor? I'm a grown man, you know."

"Not a god?" Titus took a painful pleasure in needling him.

When Aeneas spoke again, his voice was hushed with rage. "Divinity cannot be removed except by the will of the gods themselves."

"Odd, because it seems like the Senate can make and unmake deities on a whim. If you're a god, show me. Perform a miracle, and I'll gladly bow down and worship you. If not, then I'm right and you're nothing but a spoiled little princeling brat!"

"What shall I do? Grow you a proper cock?" He pointed to the fascinum that hung above the doorway. "About that big, how would that suit you? I think it would do nicely..."

Titus moved to strike him, but Aeneas was faster this time and grabbed his wrist. "Let me go," Titus said, struggling.

"Are you jealous?" Aeneas asked. He was taller than Titus by at least a cubit now, and could probably have overpowered him if he'd tried, but he didn't.

"Don't be ridiculous," Titus growled, prying his wrist free and rubbing it where it was reddened by Aeneas's fingers. "You're practically like... like my brother."

"Yes, well, I always assumed I'd marry my little sister, but apparently she's betrothed to a Numidian king now, so that's not going to happen. A not-quite-brother wouldn't be out of the question."

"You're disgusting," said Titus, and left before he could let himself waver. It was nearly dawn when he arrived back at the taberna and helped himself to some unwatered wine before falling into bed.

Three days later, Narcissus came to ask Titus's permission to wed Persis. Slaves could not marry as free citizens did, but with their master's leave, they could nevertheless make a similar arrangement. "Why do you want to marry her?" Titus asked, looking up from his counting board.

"She is beautiful," Narcissus said, which was what Titus expected, but then he continued. "And she has known me many years now, and is willing to have me even so, with all my faults."

"That seems like a very good reason, then," Titus agreed, and smiled for the first time since his quarrel with Aeneas.

It felt like hardly any time had passed at all before the census came around, announced by the crier in the marketplace (who was a skinny, bald man with a reedy voice - Titus missed the crier in Rome, who was always much easier to understand). It was all they could do to prevent Vorenus from going down and presenting himself to the censitores to be counted. "You can't," Pullo told him firmly. "Octavian's just the type to read those things himself, every last roll, and then where would we be?"

"I'm not giving up my citizenship," Vorenus grumbled. "I'm the head of this household, a freeborn Roman man, and I'm going to be counted properly. I'm no slave."

"Father," Titus said, "be reasonable. If they find out you're alive, what do you imagine they'll do? Can you think of any way this wouldn't be a complete disaster? I'll go instead."

Vorenus kept up his muttering. "At least let your brother go."

"No," said Titus firmly. "I'm the elder, I'll go." He tried to sound braver than he felt, but his knees were still trembling slightly when he reached the front of the line and identified himself as Titus Vorenus of the tribe of Stellatina, aged twenty-five, unmarried, no children, guardian to his younger brother Lucius, manager of a taberna under the sign of the cockerel. The scribe looked bored as he scribbled down this information, so Titus relaxed a little as he began to list the slaves and property he owned. He waited patiently, and was relieved and gratified to be dismissed after he had paid the requisite taxes, which didn't amount to much, since he didn't have much to tax. "By the way," the scribe added, "it's my duty to tell you that Imperator Caesar advises all unmarried men that they ought to take wives."

"I'll consider it," Titus said, smiling, and left.

**Author's Note:**

> Rome and its character ages make me pull out my hair just a little. I have tried to make some sense of the relative ages of Vorenus's children and Caesarion, but I fear it's impossible. Please join me in pretending that the children actually age during the show, and that Vorena the younger is approximately 20 and the boys in their early-to-mid-teens at the start of this story.
> 
> Also, my apologies to Horace for stealing his title (and destination!), but somehow I don't think he'd mind.
> 
> Thank you to Sineala, Carmarthen, iterum, and Measured_Words for beta assistance, brainstorming, and hand-holding.


End file.
